00:00:00 Two big changes Temple Roads is making in 2025 that you might just decide you should do on your farm. We're talking about fertility 00:00:06 and changing up his whole planting methodology. We're gonna cover that in this episode of extreme Ag Cutting the curve. 00:00:12 Welcome to Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. 00:00:22 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic episode of Extreme Action Cutting the Curve. 00:00:28 I got Temple Roads coming in from the cold. I'm recording this in January, and it is an absolute cold, 00:00:34 cold time most of the entire country. Hell, they're getting snow in New Orleans today. So anyway, he's in from the cold taking a break. 00:00:40 And, uh, I said, you know what, let's hop on here and do your recording. What couple things are you gonna change in 2025? 00:00:45 And he says, I'm gonna change my in furrow practices. I'm gonna change a lot, my fertility practices. He's gonna tell us why he's changing them 00:00:51 and, uh, the objective he hopes to attain. And more importantly, why you might consider doing the same thing on your farm. 00:00:56 All right, in furrow. Um, it was just a couple, uh, months ago we talked about the other thing, you know, like Johnny Rell last year took the two 00:01:05 by two office planter. Um, yep. There's some new technology you can change up your in furrow, you're gonna make some changes in your in furrow 00:01:12 and how you go about planting. Yeah, I mean, so what we found out, like last year, you know, we really put it to the test last year. 00:01:20 We got to a point where we said, Hey, look, we need to do a better job of managing our finances, really. So we, we were putting a lot of our products down up front. 00:01:31 You know, I had a heavy load in furrow. I had a heavy load in my two by two. We were spreading fertility, you know, on the, 00:01:39 on, on the whole acre. When I say the whole acre, not just under the road. We were doing some strip tillage as well, 00:01:46 but we were spreading the whole farm would dry fertility, I mean, what do you call it? Just fling it out there. And then what you say all the time, 00:01:51 Damien, you just fling it out there, fling it out there. So, I mean, we were, we were, yeah, fling it out there. 00:01:56 That's what Damien always say, oh, you just fling it out there. So we're changing up that. 00:02:00 So last year what we did was, is, uh, we cut way back on our fertility plans and we're gonna do some more of the same things this year 00:02:08 and just kind of took it to a test Last year. We found out that it really worked. We're gonna put, you 00:02:14 know, remember what we always talk about? We always talk about if you can get right in front of those windows of opportunity 00:02:20 and you look at, you know, one of our, uh, great sponsors, nature's, you know, I've looked at some of the things 00:02:25 that they've done in the past. They've got this, this neat little, um, piece of information that you can look at 00:02:32 and it'll tell you what that crop needs at what stage it needs. So I kind of followed it last year 00:02:38 and kind of fine tuned some stuff. So what we did was, is we figured, you know, what do I need at the beginning stages of, uh, corn plant? 00:02:46 Just, just use corn for instance. You know, I know that at from emergence to, you know, V four V five, it's determining the rows around. 00:02:57 So I don't need any more fertility on my plant than just that. So we tried to fine tune that 00:03:03 and I think that we're closer now. I don't think that I was perfect last year. I think that I'm closer. So we're gonna fine tune that 00:03:10 and we're gonna get right in front of that window. And then we know that from V six that, let's call it V eight V 10, we might need something else. 00:03:17 So we're gonna get in front of each one of those windows, but we're not gonna treat the whole acre 00:03:22 and we're not gonna go out there and just fling it out there, and we're not gonna do it all ahead of time. 00:03:27 You know, so my infer program last year, the one that made the, the most ROI was, you know, having a hopper box treatment. 00:03:36 Now it had some things in it. Like, you know, Terra sim was one of the things that was in that hopper box treatment. 00:03:42 And it created this huge, huge, massive, um, root structure. And I was like really impressed with it. 00:03:51 You know, you came out and looked at it and we did a bunch of talks on it, and I was impressed with the root structure, 00:03:56 but one of the things that it, that it showed me was, um, the nitrogen that I was putting down in front, you know, 00:04:03 I was strip tilling my anhydrous. One of the things that I learned from having that hyper box treatment in there 00:04:10 and having terrace in there, it created this massive root mass. Well, it also sucked up a lot of the nitrogen 00:04:17 that I was leaving there for later on. Yep. So what we ended up finding out, we found out that we had tipped back in the plants. 00:04:24 Now, the biomass that was generated from it, that early nitrogen was massive. So for a guy that was like, let's say solid, 00:04:33 a solid guy, man, it was massive. I mean, it, it was 30% more plant biomass in that plant. But, and now it did give me, you know, I had, 00:04:42 I think it was like a eight or 11 bushel increase in, um, at the end, you know, at, on my yield. 00:04:49 But like, I feel like I left so much on the table because it created something I wasn't ready for because I put a lot of 00:04:58 that nitrogen down off front in a strip till. So I'm like, okay, lesson well learned. You know, I don't put as much nitrogen down up front. 00:05:06 We need to spoon feed that nitrogen. So we're learning how to spoon feed the entire crop. So from the in furrow to the strip till to foliar nutrition, 00:05:16 all of these things, what I'm learning is, is if you can just get inside that just in front of those windows of opportunity 00:05:24 and have it there for when it's gonna need it later on, that's massive. So one of the things, you, you said a lot of stuff there, 00:05:32 so let's go and, uh, unpack it, which is a what corporate people talk now about unpacking, first off, flinging. 00:05:39 Yeah, it's one of my words, but the, there was this idea, you know, oh, you're mining that soil 00:05:46 and soil testing and all that. And just since, since I started working with extreme ag, we've gotten smarter. 00:05:52 It seems like the whole industry has of, no, we're not mining the soil. We just know that that nutrient 00:05:57 that's 15 inches away from the seedling isn't doing you any good. That that nutrient that's 15 inches in the middle 00:06:03 of the row, that seed can't get fit. So when you're talking about putting it where it needs to be in furrow technology 00:06:09 or using like a hopper throttle from maritime or whatever those things are, it, it's not that you're depleting the soil, hell, 00:06:16 that soil wasn't doing anything for that plant anyhow. Uh, at least for the first month of its, uh, from the time it goes into the ground 00:06:23 and sprouts until its first month. I mean, think about all the technology that that we have nowadays. 00:06:28 You know what I mean? Like, just take it back as simple as autos here. You know, we got rt, everybody's got RTK, 00:06:36 and everybody is, you know, subin technology. We can put on the exact same road, we can follow pass to pass. 00:06:44 Yep. We can do all those things. We have a really good way of, of doing this and making it capable for everybody to do it. 00:06:53 Why are we fertilizing in between the rows the same amount that we can fertilize underneath that plant, 00:06:57 if we can fertilize just underneath that plant, think about the amount of fertility that we can cut back because we're throwing a hundred percent out of it out there 00:07:04 and we're only capitalizing on 30%. That's underneath the row. So what, what are we doing? Like, so I don't think that if for any one reason 00:07:14 that we're mining the soil to be truthful, you know, we've cut back on fertility, the, the pla the past few years because of eco economies made us do that, right? 00:07:22 Our inputs have gotten so high. So we've done that and we haven't seen any changes in, in any of our soil samples. 00:07:29 We take soil samples twice a year and we haven't seen any of that. What we're seeing more of with the use of biology 00:07:36 and adding, um, other things out there, breaking down our stove or, you know, there's a tremendous amount of fertility 00:07:42 that's left out there and our stove every year and a 200 some bushel corn crop, you know, you might have 60 pounds of phosphorus 00:07:49 and 80 pounds of potassium out there, but if it's not broke down, what good is it? You know, all these years 00:07:55 that they talked about cover crops, you know, putting out a cover crop. And, and that's a great thing, don't get me wrong. 00:08:01 I know that you did, um, a podcast, uh, with Kelly about cover crops and, and it's a tremendous, tremendous value. 00:08:08 But cover crops alone aren't enough. You know, they're just not enough. And I, and I'll take it back to a simple, simple version. 00:08:16 So over the past 25 odd years, 23, 25 odd years, the state of Maryland has been incentivized to plant cover crops. 00:08:25 And we've done it on a hundred percent of our acres. We have been implemented to do nutrient um, management in our area for the last 20 some years. 00:08:34 And we've got history of taking soil samples every year for the last 25 odd years. Well, you know, in 25 odd years, out of the first 20 00:08:44 or so, our CECs or organic matter has never changed. We've never changed any of that. You know, and that's adding soil health 00:08:53 and you're making a better soil type. You know, all of that stuff. Well, we've never changed any of that. 00:08:58 Well, guess what, you know, in the last four or five years where biology has become a major player in the game, you know, it's kinda the wild wild 00:09:06 west out there with some of the biology. But we're getting it fine tuned now and breaking down stove, getting it back in the ground. 00:09:13 You know, all these things that we're implementing now. Now all of a sudden, in the last four or five years, our needle was moved on our 00:09:21 CECs and our organic matter. Where before we never made any difference over the last 20, the first 20 years that we were doing it, 00:09:27 we never made any difference. Not, like, not even a little tiny tick. You couldn't see any difference. 00:09:34 Now we're seeing differences. So we're learning a lot and we're gaining a ton of ground. And it's tremendous to see that that, you know, 00:09:41 it feels like now all these efforts are paid off because we're feeding the natural biology that's out there with Helix and Vics and sugars and all these things, and Ed 00:09:49 and biology, like all of this is starting to make a difference at this point, and that that's adding soil health. 00:09:55 So as long as we're keeping our soil healthy, we're not gonna mine our souls. We just have to find a way to unlock some 00:10:01 of the things that are in our soils. You know, that's our biggest problem. We know that we've got fertility in our souls, 00:10:06 but without adding fertilizer, we can't seem to get the crap out of it. Right. Hey, I, I gotta, I gotta throw it out there, by the way. 00:10:13 Okay. You almost, you almost inadvertently discouraged people from doing a bunch of these practices. 'cause you said it took 30 years. 00:10:21 Uh, and there's gonna be a bunch of people that say they're my age, in your age, they're gonna say, well, they help me start this now. 00:10:26 I'm my mid fifties. Why in the hell do I care? I'm in my mid fifties. Do something. There was a payoff sooner for some of those things. 00:10:34 First off, cutting back nutrients first, the first payoff was you're allowed to still farm because where you were, if you didn't cut back nutrients, 00:10:40 have a nutrient management plan, you're gonna be put outta business or fined or, you know, uh, uh, you know, 00:10:45 correct punished because of the, the regulation. So there's one benefit. The second benefit is you saw some big fertility, 00:10:53 or like you said, some organic matter movements, and it took a while for that, but I'm guessing you saw some better retention of moisture. 00:11:00 I'm guessing you saw some other biological activity. We weren't even really measuring back 30 years ago. I'm guessing that within a year 00:11:07 or two you saw some tangible results. Not, not massive, but I'm guessing you saw some. Yeah, we saw all those things. 00:11:16 I mean, you're talking about, you know, soil retention, you're talking about whatever nutrition that you put out there that was left over from your other 00:11:23 crop that wasn't running in the bay. You could, you could utilize that. And beans that we had to cut back on fertility, you know, 00:11:31 keep in mind they were cutting us back on our phosphorus and on our nitrogen. 00:11:36 So anytime that we can recapture that, keep it in a green, a green root, keep it growing, and then, 00:11:42 and then save that to our next crop, those are the things that saved us. So yes, we weren't changing our organic matter or our CECs, 00:11:49 but the bonus you are exactly right, Damon, the, the bonus that we had on the backside of retaining something, 00:11:57 that fertility, getting it back into our new plant that we're, that we're, that we're growing the next season. Mm-hmm. That, that was huge benefits 00:12:04 because I don't know that we could have had a nutrient management practice like what that like was implemented without having, 00:12:13 um, a cover crop program. I think that it would be almost impossible, in my opinion. I had Kevin on, and the changes he's making in 2025, 00:12:21 he's going back to doing some fall, I'm sorry, some early season or if even fall applied dry because he said, I'm, I'm, I've got some deficiencies 00:12:32 and not on every acre. So that's one of his big changes. You're kind of going the other way. 00:12:36 I could argue it could be soil type, it could also be climate, uh, where he's got some different challenges. 00:12:43 'cause you did, uh, field trial with one of our business partners and nature's and also with agro liquid. 00:12:51 And you talked a great length about maybe you could go 20% less fertility spend and just timing of application Absolutely. 00:13:00 Does not sacrifice yields. We covered that by the way field. That's exactly, we covered that, by the way, Doesn't, you're Listening. We covered 00:13:05 that in a field day, uh, recording. So go back and listen to it. 'cause it was in August at his farm, at Temple's Farm 00:13:11 where we did a big recording about this. Go check it out. Yeah, we, we've shown that where you can, 00:13:18 you can actually cut fertility back 20, 25%. I mean, even as, as massive as 30%. I mean, I've been in the, the strip till game for holy moly, 00:13:27 you know, 15, 18 years. And, and one of our first things that we did, you know, all them years ago was we were, we, we had a, 00:13:35 we had a true NPK program and we put everything down up front, never went back in inside dressed. 00:13:40 We didn't know anything about foliar nutrition. We didn't know anything, but we knew that we could cut back on our fertility by 30% 00:13:48 and still come up with the same yield. That was what we were thinking. And we proved that, you know what I mean? 00:13:53 That was 20 something years ago that we proved that. So we can know that that works. Where we're benefiting now is, is the fact 00:13:59 that we can get on foliar nutrition throughout the season and get the plan exactly what it wants. 00:14:05 I mean, just for the, the, the mainstay of what we talked about last year with you and I talked about, you know, being able to 00:14:13 juggle your finances according to the weather is a major play. When you put it all out upfront, you're, 00:14:20 you're stuck to that number. You're not getting away from that number whatsoever. I wrote down my posty notes here before we hit record. 00:14:27 And one of the things besides fertility changes for budget, which is clearly important in 2025, the other reason is, 00:14:34 is just, uh, regulatory, there's, everybody's gonna end up, we think you and I both think 00:14:38 that everybody in the United States, in the business of our agriculture is gonna start having more scrutiny about their, uh, applied nutrients. 00:14:44 Because, you know, we've talked about it. Des Moines River Watershed. Well, they're, what, what, regardless of 00:14:51 what watershed it would, it might, they might be near or what aquifer they might be near, it's all coming. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's a hundred percent coming. 00:15:00 I mean, take this for instance. So Johnny and I have had multiple conversations about irrigation, right? 00:15:06 Um, and we both agreed that the first years that we put in irrigation was always the, the most valuable time, the biggest return on our, on our investment. 00:15:18 And then all of a sudden it dwindles down and dwindles down. It seems like our water quality 00:15:22 is getting, is getting worse. This is even the irrigation. We think the bicarbonates that are, 00:15:27 that we're putting out there with some of our fertility that we're putting out there is leaching through and it's getting into our aquifer 00:15:32 and we're sucking it back up and putting it back on the crop. You know, so a lot of these high salt indexes, some 00:15:37 of the stuff that's got, you know, like KCL, it's got chloride in it, you know, all of these things. We think that some of that might be stemming through 00:15:44 and getting into some of our water quality. So it's, it's a multitude of different things. I mean, we're, our minds are racing a million miles an hour 00:15:54 to try to figure out why some of these things are happening that are happening. But it, it's a struggle everywhere. 00:16:00 And we're, regardless of how safe we think a product is, if you're not putting it right there 00:16:06 where the plant's gonna use it up and you're fertilizing every acre, there is an opportunity for that to get into a water source 00:16:14 of some type if it's not sucked up by a crop. Speaking of water sources and temple roads, he and I, if you're listening to this, 00:16:21 before February 19th, we're gonna be in western Nebraska and Gary Nebraska doing a talk 00:16:26 to a couple hundred producers. We hope more than that about this very topic because he's got 30 years experience with water next 00:16:34 to the field and a pretty heavy dose of regulation. Nutrient management plans are gonna be a requirement I'm convinced to get crop insurance 00:16:41 or participate in USDA programs, which you probably need to be, you're gonna end up having 00:16:46 to have nutrient management plans. You talk about the Des Moines River watershed, there's, you're not even talking about, okay, 00:16:51 simples out in the East Coast where they're anti agriculture. That's not necessarily true. That's not a lot. 00:16:56 People think it's happening in Nebraska, it's happening in Iowa, it's happening in North Ohio, not too far from my farm. 00:17:03 This started 20 years ago with algae blooms in the Lake Erie because of phosphorus overuse and over application. 00:17:08 This is a big deal. We're gonna be talking about it February 19th in Gary, Nebraska for a great group of people there, because this is what we do. 00:17:14 We go around and help people, uh, adjust and succeed. While we're talking about fertility, I also wanna talk to you about our friends at Nature's Nature's is one 00:17:21 of our business partners here at, uh, uh, cutting the Curve. And you know what? They also were our first sponsor 00:17:26 with our new show called The Greenery. I encourage you to check that out. Go to Extreme Mag Farm. Anyway, nature's produces high quality liquid fertility 00:17:32 products powered by Nature's Bio. Okay? Target specific periods of influence like temple's talking about throughout the 00:17:38 growing season via precision placement techniques. As Temple said, you've got tools at your disposal to get this fertility where it 00:17:44 needs to be, when it needs to be there. It's not like the 1960s and seventies where we're just going 00:17:48 out and flinging stuff around. So use this product to mitigate plant stress and enhance crop yield. And most importantly, boost your farms. 00:17:54 ROI go to natures.com to learn more. Alright, you talked about salt, that's another one. 00:18:02 You said there's a bicarbon. It's this, this thing that we're starting to get smarter about is like, wait a minute. 00:18:10 You know, how did we just solve, I dunno if we're getting smarter, what we're getting, we're getting, we're getting dangerous is what it really is. 00:18:15 I mean, we're trying to get smarter, but we sure as hell or seems like we're getting very dangerous to ourselves. 00:18:21 You know what I mean? Every time that we think that we got something figured out, it feels like sometimes we got nothing figured out. 00:18:27 But the, the, the salt loads on the fields are becoming to a point that we think that it's really affecting, affecting the biology out there. 00:18:38 And, and that's become a problem because every time that we affect the biology, and it doesn't matter what we do, you know, 00:18:43 you can throw a salt load out there on the field and it can affect the biology. We can throw a heavy fungicide treatment out there. 00:18:48 It can affect the biology. There's a lot of things that we do. I mean, and I've told you 00:18:52 before, we, we inject anhydrous, you know, so does Kelly. And that straight up kills biology. 00:18:58 You know, all these things that we're doing affect the biology and, and we're affecting ourself. And the more that we, we learn that we need 00:19:05 to back up on some of these things, we are doing some type of harm. Now the trick is, is figuring out how to get 00:19:15 what we need out there with the tools that we have. You know, is there some way to buffer some of that load? Is there some way to handle it? 00:19:22 You know, these are all things that we haven't quite figured out yet, you know, but like I said, the technology that we, 00:19:29 that we've come upon, you know, think about this. You know, when we go out there, I'm gonna use your term one more 00:19:34 time, flinging it out there. Maybe we should rename this thing, you know, whether to fling or not to fling, you know, maybe 00:19:40 that's the name of the podcast. I like it. But when you, excuse me. Yeah. So when you put that out there on the ground, 00:19:49 it doesn't matter what fertility is. Um, you know, whether it's NP or K, you know, it's only gonna move down through the 00:19:55 so soil profile, but you're putting it on the top of the ground and you're not actually incorporating it in the ground where the plant can actually utilize it. 00:20:02 You know, roots go down. They don't lay on top of the ground. They, they're not gonna get it all. 00:20:06 Phosphorus, for instance, you know, they say phosphorus doesn't move more than, what is it, like a eighth of an inch in 00:20:13 six months or something like that. So you're, you're putting it on top the ground and then you're expecting the plant to get it. 00:20:19 Well, the roots don't grow up, they grow down. So all of these things play a, a major effect into that, you know? 00:20:25 And so then you're, you think about it like this, like, so I've thrown all this salt all over the ground. I don't have a way for it to, to, to take the plant. 00:20:32 Can't really take it up. So I mean, we're, we're creating, uh, our own problems. 00:20:38 But when you look at some low salt stuff, like, you know, some of the foer nutrition that we're using, 00:20:44 it's extremely low salt. Well, that low salt never even touches the ground. You know, it only touches the plant 00:20:50 where the plant can utilize it. It can pull it up, and it has the technology to suck it right up. 00:20:54 You know, one of the really, really high salt ones is potassium, you know, and we're throwing potassium chloride out there, 00:21:01 or potassium sulfate, whatever it may be. You're throwing that out there. It's a high salt load. When you can use a something that's lower salt, you can use, 00:21:09 um, potassium acetate, you know, bio okay, from natures for instance. And you can put it on the plant 00:21:15 and it's like a 10 x rate, you know, the plant can utilize it right away. It's not getting into the soil profile. 00:21:22 Like all of these things play a major part of it. And, and we showed it last year by growing these crops. And, and I had it in irrigated and I had it in dry land. 00:21:32 And the fact of the matter is, if it wasn't for the fact that I did it on majority of my dry land last year, 00:21:40 and instead of putting, doing my old method of, you know, we, we spread a bunch of fertility up front 00:21:47 and then we might work it in the ground, but most of the time it's mostly no-till. So, you know, your quote flinging it, I saved that money 00:21:54 and then I fed the crop all throughout the year, and a lot of times it was anywhere between 80 to a hundred dollars an acre savings of me spoon feeding 00:22:04 that crop versus the other way. And it allowed me to, Hey, look, the weather is doing x, y, or z, I can either add it or I can take away where 00:22:13 before it was, man, you better be doing some serious preying because if not, you're in, you're in a bad way. 00:22:19 Okay? So I said, when we're going through asking all the guys, and I've got Kelly, Kevin, Sam, temple, 00:22:24 and I'm gonna, uh, still got a couple to record, but we're doing all this about changes for 2025. The always think like the person that's listening 00:22:31 to this says, well, it's easy for Temple to say he's got all those acres and he is got his hi, his kids helping him. 00:22:35 He is got this equipment. You don't have to have a bunch of equipment. You just talk about you're gonna use 00:22:40 Amer stem hopper throttle. If you don't have in furrow technology on your planter, you still can do this. 00:22:45 You can use products that just get dumped on your seed and, and essentially, yep. 00:22:51 Johnny Rell once said, he is like, that's the easiest adjustment you can make. You don't have to have a bunch of money 00:22:57 and have, uh, in your equipment and in forrow technology because these products now basically make up for that. 00:23:04 Yeah, I mean the technology and the, and what we already have, like I already have infra program, um, and I had it 00:23:11 and I used it very differently than what I'm gonna utilize it now. Um, I'm gonna cut back on some things and aid some things, 00:23:18 and I'm gonna, and I'm fine tuning my in furrow. I'm fine tuning my tuba two, you know, before my tuba two was, uh, like a, 00:23:27 it was a high phosphorus program in my UBA two. I've stopped doing that now because I've realized that I don't need all 00:23:33 that phosphorus at that point. I need the phosphorus to drag out to the end. So I changed that, 00:23:40 and I can accommodate that by using that as foliar nutrition. In the end. I don't need to put that huge slug up front 00:23:46 because majority of the phosphorus, like 67% of the phosphorus usage in a corn plant is in reproduction, not in vegetation, right? 00:23:55 So I don't want to grow a lot of vegetation. I wanna, I sell seed, I don't sell biomass, right? So we've learned all these things. 00:24:02 So by adapting and, and just changing, I mean, I already have a sprayer. Most guys, you know, a lot of people do. 00:24:09 I'm not saying all of them do, but even if they don't have a sprayer, they have a sprayer company that, uh, application company 00:24:14 that comes out and does it for 'em. So just change what you're putting on instead of putting on just straight herbicide. 00:24:20 Maybe there's an application that you can make in there and cut, take it out of the front end. You're just, what does Chad say? Reallocating. Yeah. 00:24:27 You're not changing your program, right? Your total plant nutrition program is going to be very similar. 00:24:34 It's not gonna change a lot. You're just reallocating. Well, you just talked about just fertility can go a lot different places. 00:24:39 This, it's not competitive or, uh, antagonistic to have a fertility in with a herbicide, uh, sprayer pass, is it? 00:24:47 I mean, there's, there's no, no, there's no, it's not like degrade the, uh, effectiveness of no herbicide. 00:24:52 So you can do it on fertility, you can do fertility, then you can do fertility and furrow. You can do fertility even in a hopper, uh, 00:24:58 application on the seed. You can do fertility as a foliar. So Well on your, on your hyper on your hypers seed thing, 00:25:05 you're, you're, you're getting something different. You're getting a terin product, you're getting a little bit of biology that you're putting out there 00:25:12 that will help you do some stuff. I'm Stress reduction, getting something to reduce stress at the cold 00:25:18 Soil, right? I mean, and well, what we, what we found out with our hyper box treatments, you know, there, there's, 00:25:25 there's multiple ones that you can use out there, but in our hyper box treatments, what we found is, is we got plain and simply we got a better stand. 00:25:32 You know? And what we're figuring out is like, you know, we were everybody like, 00:25:36 let's just use soybeans for instance. Everybody's like, oh, if you plant early beans, you gotta treat 'em. 00:25:41 They have to be treated, which the treatment is fungicide, insecticide. Well in, in the hopper box treatments. 00:25:47 Now if you really want 'em, you can get the fungicide insecticide in there, or you can use it through your in furrow. 00:25:52 So I, I mean, I've changed up a lot of things and I found out that in a lot of cases, you know, we would get our seed treated fungicide, insecticide, 00:26:00 and then in my, in my infer treatment, I'd have fungicide, insecticide. So I'm doubling up on my fungicide and sex side. 00:26:06 Well, what does fungicide do when you put it in the soil? Yes, it protects the seed. 00:26:11 Yes, it protects the plant from diseases. It also can have tendency, it might kill some biology, but we don't really want some of these things to happen. 00:26:19 So I don't need to double up on some of these things. You know, it's time to, and these new modern day farming, we need to figure out how to cut back. 00:26:28 But what we found in the hyper box treatments is, is we were getting a all around better stand, you know, our stand out there 00:26:35 and our population, our final stands were always better. So it was, it was enlightening to me to see 00:26:41 that in beans and in corn. So, By the way, you said that there's something we never even knew about, and I tried to always be a student here 00:26:49 and learn, uh, as much or more than the people listening to this. We never talked about fungi to bacteria ratios in our soil. 00:26:58 I never even heard that until the year 2024, where, first off, I don't think we ever measured it. I don't think I'm sure we ever, we ever knew 00:27:05 that much about it or cared. And we certainly never had a ability to measure it. And we just started talking about that last year over 00:27:11 utilization of fungicide applications, uh, has killed the hell out of the fungi in the soil, which is a beneficial thing 00:27:19 and racked up a, a margin, it's wreaked havoc. It's made it so that, like Kelly talked about, like 1700 to one bacteria to fungi, 00:27:27 and you're supposed to be closer to one to one. That's, that's a new thing where what you're talking about, you know, we've been mostly talking about fertility, 00:27:34 but you're just talking about this is not only smart to do, it saves you money if you could just cut back on a double 00:27:41 application of fungicide. Yeah, I mean, they talked about that at Johnny's field day. 00:27:45 You know, he was talking about burying like white t-shirts in the soil and talking about using, um, 00:27:52 different things like, and, and he was measuring, you know, it was just a little, it's a visual kind of measuring bacteria to fungi is 00:28:01 what it really was. And when he was talking about, they were talking about actually spreading, you know, dry fertility, that, that actually kills some 00:28:11 of the bacteria in fungi because what's in it, whether it was the chloride that was in it or whether it was the salt load, was that, 00:28:17 those are questions I can't answer. Um, brewer was the one that gave the talk Yeah. Down there, Johnny's field day. 00:28:22 But that was enlightening to me when we were actually doing that much damage to our soil and Exactly right. 00:28:29 You mean that that fungi of bacteria ratio needs to be closer to one-to-one. And I can't remember what Kel Kelly was the one 00:28:36 that's expert on this, but when you talk to Kelly about it, like his ratios in his soil were like crazy. 00:28:42 I balanced. And when we talk about putting fungicides on a plant, you know, and, and, and make a plant healthy, and, 00:28:48 and believe me, I am one of the strongest advocates for fungicides that you'll ever see over application of fungicide. 00:28:56 I'm not, I I mean, I'm just not. But again, that's not getting into your soil profile and you're not, again, think about treating every acre, 00:29:04 you know, whether you get it, if you get fungicide just in the furrow, you know, you're treating that small little space 00:29:12 where you're not treating the whole entire dirt profile. Like, I mean, all these things make a difference. Yep. 00:29:18 Uh, one of the things I'm gonna go through is, uh, you know, I said we're asking a lot of the same questions to the guys about changes in 2025. 00:29:25 What's the objective? I, I think I'm pretty well summarized. Uh, you're gonna try and reduce your spend 00:29:30 or at least keep the, spend the same and have bigger, it's either same yield, reduced spend, or bigger yield, same spend. 00:29:37 And so what's your, what is your, uh, thought? Which one do you get? You get? I think that, you know, I'm, I'm reducing spend 00:29:45 and I'm gonna come up with the exact same yield. I've, I've proved it that, that it doesn't make a difference one way or the other. 00:29:51 Um, really what it is, it's about, it's, it's fine tuning our finances is really what it is according to the weather that permits us 00:30:00 to spend what we need to spend. Mm-hmm. And then the other one, I think we can make a pretty strong case and objective is probably, uh, soil health. 00:30:08 Um, because, uh, over application, as you said, first off, it doesn't get utilized by the plant. 00:30:14 And so if you think you're building up a bank in the soil, there's an argument made for that. 00:30:18 But, um, we're largely learning that building up the soil bank. It's, it's, um, with, with applied synthetic fertility, 00:30:26 it's almost not real. Well, I mean, we can talk about building up the soil bank, but one, I don't feel like we really 00:30:32 need to build up the soil bank. The soil is what, what what it is right now, you know, like, God made it what it is, 00:30:39 and we are, we're trying to maintain it as long as we put back whatever that crop took off. Yeah. I don't know that you need to, to build it. 00:30:47 And you only, you know, when you are in a nutrient management, you know, place like I am, you learn that you can get away with 00:30:57 year after year growing that crop and not worried about what is in the soil or anything else. You can worry about what's in that crop. 00:31:07 And do we have unbalanced soil types? Sure. Everybody has unbalanced soil. I don't care what you can think 00:31:13 that you have the most balanced soil in the world and you realistically don't. You have to unlock what's in it. 00:31:18 First of all, you have to grow the crop and know what that crop's requirements are. Or it, none of it doesn't matter. 00:31:26 The person that's gonna try and make some of these similar changes. Um, I guess I, I think the recommendation's pretty easy. 00:31:34 Again, we already said you don't have to have a bunch of, you don't have to go out and change 00:31:36 your lineup of equipment. You can use stuff that's, uh, goes in. I mean, that's, other than maybe 00:31:41 they'd say, well, I don't have y drop. That'd be the only thing. Yeah. I mean, but there's a custom application company, 00:31:48 whether they have y drop or not. I mean, there's other ways to get fertility on besides just going out there with y drop. 00:31:54 You know, you can, I'd start somewhere, you know what I mean? You already have a system in place, 00:31:59 I'm sure whether it's two by two in furrow, I mean, the hopper box treatment is an easy place to really start. I mean, you could, I've seen scenarios 00:32:08 where I turn my in furrow completely off, completely off and just run the hyper box treatments, same yield. 00:32:16 So I mean, there, there's a, there's more studies to be done. For me, I just think that with what I'm trying to do, 00:32:24 I have to have that slug of fertility right there at the seed through, you know, the nature's blend that I have that I'm running in furrow 00:32:33 across my grower standard practice. I have to have that because of my inherent condition. So not everybody needs to have that. 00:32:41 A lot of people can get away with just straight hyper box treatment and then let it go to that next pay, you know, 00:32:47 but you can put it on, I mean, there's guys out here that, you know, for their, their side dress pay us instead of, um, 00:32:54 putting on, you know, wide drop and they're spreading fertility over the top and they, they seem to manage it just fine 00:33:00 and then they'll water it in. You know, they, there's multiple ways to accommodate it. I mean, mat flies on urea sometimes for, 00:33:09 for a side dress pass. So it just depends on what you wanna do. But it just say, if your conditions are burning up 00:33:16 and at least you take the, the abil, you have the ability to say, man, it's droughty, it's bad. 00:33:23 Uh, there's no green in the forecast. Yeah. You skip that. Pass us Abort and say, okay, I'm, I'm done. 00:33:30 Exactly. You have that ability to do that. Where before you don't have that ability to do that. 'cause once it's out there on the dirt, it's yours. 00:33:37 Go and listen to the episode that he and I did, uh, temple and I did at his field day last August. 00:33:42 It's out there and it's all about, uh, he completely revamped and changed up, uh, for a plot. And it turns out it did just great. 00:33:49 It made bigger yield and spent less money on it. You can do the same. That's why we're here to help you at extreme ag. 00:33:54 Also, we've got field days. All the field days are scheduled for 2025. And one of them, in fact, the last one 00:34:00 of the season is at Chestnut Manor Farm. All the farm, by the way, if you've never been to Maryland, agriculture Eastern Shore, go across the bay 00:34:07 and all this from BA Baltimore. All the farms have names and a bunch of 'em have pictures of like ducks. 00:34:12 Because you know what? They used to try and tell you that the, they used to try and tell you the Chesapeake Bay was getting polluted 00:34:17 by all the chicken farms. I think it's because of all the waterfowl. That's why Temple shoots 'em, 00:34:22 because they're s******g everywhere. So it's important. Exactly. It's important that you go out there and shoot those geese and ducks. 00:34:26 Anyway, all the, all the farms in Eastern Maryland have, uh, have, have farm names. 00:34:31 His is Chestnut Manor Farms. There's no ducks or geese, I don't think in their farm logo, but most of 'em do have that. 00:34:38 Anyway, there Isn't mine. There's a Goose logo in mine. There is A goose. All right. Yeah, that's right. 00:34:42 There's a goose. It's in Centerville, Maryland, and it's gonna be on August 21st. We encourage you and invite you to come to any end. 00:34:49 All of our field days. You'll see, uh, plots, you'll talk to our business partners about products, about practices. 00:34:55 You'll see equipment, you'll see people that you can learn from. That's why we're there. We do these, uh, they start in May, 00:35:01 May 22nd is our first field day at Chad Henderson's, that's one of the descendant twins with Temple. And then we wrap up our last field days, August 21st, 00:35:09 and a whole bunch of field days in between. So I encourage you to check it out. We'll be putting this up at Extreme Ag Farm, 00:35:14 um, and it's always a lot of fun. So anyway, till next time. Thanks for being here, my friend. And by the way, he had to take a break. 00:35:19 He had to take a break. Anyhow, he can't be outside in this kinda weather. It's just, it's too brutal out there. 00:35:23 It's too cold, too Cold, too cold. Anyway, he's Temple Roads. I'm Damien Mason. This is extreme max. 00:35:27 Cutting the curve. Thanks for being here. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme Ag Farm 00:35:34 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:35:38.045 --> 00:35:39.325